Migrants cleared from Calais Jungle return on 86p public buses to try smuggling themselves across Channel again

Hundreds catch lift from campsite 30 miles along coast at Dunkirk

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BY MATT WILKINSON

18th February 2017, 11:19 pm

Updated: 19th February 2017, 9:59 pm

MIGRANTS cleared out of Calais are commuting back there on €1 (86p) public buses to launch fresh attempts to smuggle themselves across the Channel — without any intervention from the French authorities.

Hundreds have flocked to a makeshift campsite 30 miles along the coast at Dunkirk since the Jungle was cleared last November.

Migrants are using public buses to return to Calais after the Jungle was cleared last year

For an 86p ticket they can try their luck crossing the Channel

They are catching the cut-price number 501 public bus that runs past their new camp at Grande-Synthe and takes them straight to Calais.

Migrants are spending the night trying to smuggle themselves on board UK-bound lorries at the ferry port and Eurotunnel terminal.

If they are unsuccessful they then commute back to Dunkirk for food and shelter at the camp and try again the next night — all for an 86p ticket.

The bus runs right by the migrants' campsite, 30 miles from Calais at Dunkirk

PA:Press Association Archive

Dover MP Charlie Elphicke says it's important the buses are stopped so that migrants can't continue to try smuggling themselves into the UK

One French villager said: “It’s disgusting. These buses are meant to be for students and elderly to get around not used as a cheap way for migrants to get into Britain.

“Closing the Jungle has not changed a thing.”

Footage of migrants using the buses appeared on BBC’s Inside Out show this week.

One said: “I cannot say how many people but I see sometimes when I come to Calais the bus is full of refugees getting to Calais.”

It’s disgusting. These buses are meant to be for students and elderly to get around

Another added: “We get on the bus and try to get on a lorry. We try to get to London.”

The 501 bus to Calais runs three times a day and is regularly crammed with 30 migrants on each journey.

Packed with warm clothes and sleeping bags migrants make the return journey if they fail to smuggle themselves into Britain.

Getty Images

More than 9,000 migrants were living in the Calais Jungle (top) before it was demolished and evacuated (bottom) last October

Getty Images

Migrants are still making their way to Calais to attempt to board lorries bound for the UK

Dover MP Charlie Elphicke said: “It’s really important that these buses are stopped so that people can’t just go to Calais, try their luck and then go back home in the evening to the camp in Dunkirk.

“The situation has vastly improved in Calais since we got the Jungle camp dismantled.

“Yet we must remain vigilant and keep the pressure on the French to stop the Jungle returning – before the first tent is pitched.”

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Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said: “When the Jungle camp was dismantled last October, we warned that many migrants would remain near the coastline, ready for the opportunity to jump on the back of a UK-bound truck.

“It now looks as though we will be facing yet another summer of misery for hauliers.

"The grim reality is that desperate migrants are turning into commuters in a daily effort to cross the Channel as stowaways on the back of UK bound lorries — the authorities must act fast to protect the lives and livelihoods of hauliers.”

BBC's Inside Out aired footage of migrants using the 501 buses last week

The cut-price bus runs to Calais three times a day

Hundreds have started living at the Grande-Synthe camp since the Calais Jungle was cleared.

It was France’s first ever internationally recognised refugee camp when it opened in March last year.

It has cost £15million to build and has cabins, toilets, heating, shared kitchens and a small hospital.

Kurdish migrant Arean Mohammed, 22, said: “We have 300 shelters here every shelter has five persons inside so it must be 1,500 men, women and children.

There are regularly up to 30 migrants on board one bus

The migrants return to Dunkirk for food and shelter if they fail to smuggle themselves into Britain